2 Sentenced to Death in Killing of Bangladeshi Activist in 2013

Image

Some of the defendants charged in the 2013 murder of Rajib Haider, a secular blogger and activist, being escorted by the police in Dhaka on Thursday. Six of the accused received prison terms.CreditMunir Uz Zaman/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

By Julfikar Ali Manik

Dec. 31, 2015

DHAKA, Bangladesh — A court in Bangladesh sentenced two people to death and six others to prison terms on Thursday for killing a secular blogger and activist in 2013, the first sentences in a series of killings of bloggers in Bangladesh.

Among the eight men convicted in the killing of the blogger, Rajib Haider, was Jasimuddin Rahmani, the leader of a banned Islamic militant group, Ansarullah Bangla Team, who is currently in prison. Mr. Rahmani received a five-year sentence for inciting the other men to kill Mr. Haider, said Mahbubur Rahman, a state prosecutor.

Mr. Haider, an architect and blogger who was critical of the Islamist political party Jamaat-e-Islami in Bangladesh, was hacked to death by machete-wielding assailants on the road near his home in Dhaka, the capital, in February 2013. The assailants were students at a private university, Mr. Rahman said.

Two of the students, Faisal Bin Nayeem and Redwanul Azad Rana, were sentenced to death, though Mr. Rana, who graduated from North South University in Dhaka, remained a fugitive. One of the other assailants — all of whom attended the same college and were already in prison — was sentenced to life. Four of the students were convicted of helping to plan the killing by identifying Mr. Haider and staking out his home, Mr. Rahman said. Three were given 10-year sentences and one a three-year sentence.

Four other bloggers and a publisher have been killed in Bangladesh over the past year amid a rise in violence against liberal secular activists critical of Islamist parties.

The killings have contributed to an atmosphere of fear in Bangladesh, and some public figures have avoided openly discussing the threat posed by radical Islamists in recent months.

Seven of the eight convicted of killing Mr. Haider had confessed their participation in the murder and said that Mr. Rana, who is still at large, organized the attack, Mr. Rahman, the prosecutor, said.

“Confessional statements of the accused, recovered machetes and mobile SIM cards and some other evidences helped to prove the charges against the eight accused beyond reasonable doubt,” he said.

“I believe this first verdict in any blogger killing case is very significant,” Mr. Rahman added. “Because fanatic killers would get the message from this judgment that they can’t evade trial and punishment.”

But Mr. Rahman also said that he was somewhat dissatisfied with the verdict: He had expected that at least five of the men would receive a death sentence, and said that he would appeal the decision to a higher court.

The lawyer for Mr. Rahmani, the Islamist leader, said that he would appeal to a higher court as well.

The victim’s father, Mohammad Nazimuddin, was in court Thursday to hear the verdict.

He said he was “very sad and disheartened by the verdict” because the police had still failed to arrest Mr. Rana, the chief planner of his son’s murder. He added that he had hoped that all of the men would have received the death penalty.

The convictions marked “a long overdue but encouraging first step in addressing the violence directed against bloggers in Bangladesh,” Sumit Galhotra, the Asia research associate at the Committee to Protect Journalists, said in a statement issued Thursday. He added that until the planner of the attack was apprehended, “justice remained incomplete.”

“If Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s government is committed to protecting the country’s independent voices, it must act decisively to deliver justice in the murders of other bloggers and ensure the protection of those who remain at risk,” Mr. Galhotra said in the statement.

Get news and analysis from Asia and around the world delivered to your inbox every day with the Today’s Headlines: Asian Morning newsletter. Sign up here.

A version of this article appears in print on , on Page A4 of the New York edition with the headline: Two Sentenced to Death in the Killing of a Blogger. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe